Stanley Yap is the designer and photographer behind Life’s A Stage, a book by author Evelyn Teng. The work is a behind-the-scenes look at the art and lives of the opera performers of Ong Si Mui’s Troupe, one of the last Hokkien opera troupes in Singapore. It also reveals glimpses of a vanishing art and captures a part of Singapore’s cultural history.

The book cover is inspired by the script synopsis which hangs near the stage entrance of every street opera troupe, and comes with a safety pin bookmark.

“The script synopsis plays the important role of keeping the whole show together as it cues the performers and stagehands for the upcoming scenes,” Stanley explains. “I have appropriated the form of the synopsis as the book cover, and held in it are the contents of the book, broken down just like the scenes of a script and handwritten in Chinese. I wanted the cover to be as close to the original synopsis as possible, so as to retain the authentic soul of street opera. The safety pin, which marks ongoing scenes, can be used as a bookmark.”

The book is on the shelves of PageOne, Books Actually, Select Books and all Museum Shops. Click here to preview it.